by Elmer Dean

Created on: March 29, 2009

Privacy, the right of the individual people within our society to tend to their own lives without unwanted intrusion. Secrecy implies a life of hiding and guilt where one must hide to avoid exposure or conviction. While secrecy may be a similar thing it isn't the same thing, think a square is always a rectangle but a rectangle isn't necessarily a square. The private life is one where you may live without bother, or fear. Your generalities may be secret or relatively so, but you are not hiding. You keep the details of your private lifestyle to yourself and the ones you choose to tell. Think private property, you own it and you keep it. Why should you let someone intrude on something that is yours? That is privacy, property. Yourself, your money, your land, etc. It is not a secret when you want the right to use your property to your own purposes without interference, to reveal details selectively. The right of any owner of said property.

Lets move on to Secrecy shall we? First we can dissect the word. Anyone with literacy would notice the word secrect within the word secrecy. Secrecy is the state of holding secrets. What is a secret? Secrets are something you do not wish to be known by anyone else, usually because it is not something that is socially acceptable. This could range anywhere from the trivial happenings of a babbling freshman girl or the love affair of a well-loved husband. This state of hiding is different then privacy. Privacy implies property, while secrecy implies an embarrassment to social standards. When did the lines of secrecy and privacy become so close? Why is it being questioned that property is not socially acceptable?

There is an obvious negative connotation to each word. I detest the attitude towards a private life where it is being mistaken for a socially unacceptable state of being. To add a final bit, do not mistake for one bit the right of an individual to hold a secret or private life. We are naturally endowed with both of these rights. The essential difference between both states of being is the motivation for ether of them. Do not associate the life of a private business man with the life of a murderer. The man of secrets has his motivations constantly challenged while the man of privacy is confused for the man of secrets. The man of privacy is not a killer, the man of privacy is the man who desires comfort in his own home. The man of secrets is the one who desires comfort with his shades drawn.

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